


the end of the world as we know it

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Series: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 2013 Fic Advent Calendar, Episode: s01e02 The End of the World, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 14:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s already pushed past the woman and started into the other corridor when a smooth voice asks, “It’s your first time off-planet, isn’t it?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the end of the world as we know it

**Author's Note:**

> [kilodalton](http://kilodalton.tumblr.com) asked “For your fic advent calendar, how about a ficlet with some interaction between Rose and either Lynda or Jabe that passes the Bechdel Test?”
> 
> Fill #9 for my [2013 fic advent calendar](http://lyricalprose.tumblr.com/tagged/2013-fic-advent-calendar).

Rose is lost.  
  
She’s somewhere in the bowels of this barmy space station, turned around and confused by the maze of nearly identical hallways. She’s just about convinced herself to turn around and go find Raffalo again, to ask for directions, when someone comes around the corner.  
  
It’s the… _tree._ The greenish woman in the red dress that the Doctor had been flirting with, earlier.  
  
“Oh,” the other woman says, mildly. “What are you doing here?” The way she says you set’s Rose’s teeth on edge. It’s a bit too much like the way posh customers at Henrik’s say (well, _used_ to say, she supposes) _you there_ and _that girl_ and _excuse me, paying customer here._  
  
Rose straightens up and replies, with a confidence she doesn’t entirely feel, “What’re you doing here?”  
The other woman holds up a metal contraption that looks a bit like a remote control, though Rose sincerely doubts that’s what it is. “This needs to be…calibrated,” she says, looking at it with the sort of desperate confusion Rose has only ever seen on the faces of people revising for physics exams. The haughtiness has bled out of her voice, replaced by a tone that sounds more hopelessly puzzled than anything. “The metal seems easily confused.”  
  
Deflated, just a bit, by this ready display of honesty, Rose’s shoulders sag, her hackles coming down. “Right then,” she mutters, eyeing the corridor that the other woman’s just come out of. “I’ll just…try this way, then.”  
  
She’s already pushed past the woman and started into the other corridor when a smooth voice asks, “It’s your first time off-planet, isn’t it?” Rose doesn’t answer, and the woman tries again. “Or off the flotilla? Out of the conglomeration, perhaps?”  
  
Rose turns around to see the tree-woman staring at her intently. “Um,” she stammers, still feeling a bit lost in this sea of new vocabulary – in a world where it’s not _what part of the world are you from?_ but _what **world** are you from?,_ where some people are blue and trees can talk and humans are two-thousand-year-old paper-thin flaps of skin. “Yeah. Guess you could say that.”  
  
“I am Jabe,” the woman offers. “Sworn representative of the Forest of Cheem.” She smiles, gently. “The first time I left the Forest, I was a bit frightened, too.”  
  
“I’m not–” Rose thinks better of the lie before it finishes leaving her mouth. “I’m Rose,” she says instead.  
  
“You will find the main hall in that direction, Rose,” Jabe says, pointing down the hallway she’s started down. “And–”  
  
Jabe pauses, for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to say something. Finally, she purses her lips before saying, “It is worth it, you know. Seeing what is outside the forest one was grown in.” She gives Rose a soft smile. “New soil, new suns – they’re good for anything that grows. It will feel less overwhelming, in time.”  
  
It’s a bizarre sentiment. It’s also probably the nicest thing anyone who isn’t the Doctor has said to her in weeks. “Thanks,” she says quietly before turning, off to try her luck in the maze of hallways one more time.


End file.
